redguard2009
17th November 2008, 02:38
Sectarianism has existed within Communism essentially since its conception, but today it has exploded into a deeply harmful tendency which plagues every aspect, every corner of revolutionary theory and practice.
During the latter half of the 19th century there existed quite a lot of strife between various sections of the working-class and revolutionary movement. Such is written about extensively by Marx throughout his texts in which criticisms are laid against other individuals and groups concerning their practice and/or theory.
But it was not until the mid 20th century that sectarianism as we know and love it today really took over. Though during the early 1900s, Lenin and the Russian and German communists, who at the time represented the largest mainstream communist movement in the world, embarked into "opposing camps", with social-democrats, utopian socialists, "Kautskyists" and various other gruops and individuals, it wasn't really until the onset of the Second World War that rifts between revolutionary movements and communist groups took a dangerous turn.
In Spain, the anti-fascist brigades made up of a wide array of ideologies successfully fought together against a common foe. However, in the tumultuous aftermath of their defeat, biting remarks and stinging criticisms were formed which in time shaped our world.
The political atmosphere surrounding the outbreak of the Second World War is also a cataclysmic point in history in which communists and other leftists began breaking apart from one another, as some pursued friendly relations with Stalin's USSR and others adopted critical positions on its relationship with Germany. And in the aftermath of that war, as Soviet influence grew in liberated countries, various factions, notably those adhering to Trotskyism, came to engender what they believed was a society of "communist victims of communism", seeing the apparent oppressive tendencies of the Soviet government as justification for breaking from any who supported the Soviet Union.
Further incidents ensued which chipped away and fragmented the socialist world. The Korean war, the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet-Yugoslavian split, the Sino-Soviet split, the Cuban Missile Crisis, all developed from or developed into serious divisions.
All told, 30 years after the end of the Second World War, the communist world was fractured and split, with various camps forming and breaking alliances, conspiring against one another and unleashing a barrage of propaganda villifying their political opponents and angelicising themselves.
This tendency has seriously affected the communist movement. No longer are differences developed over debate and criticism -- the communist movement has split off into what I can only describe as gang culture, with self-imposing labels of affiliation serving as the main and often sole source of conflict between comrades, as each of us are more than willing not only to label others but also label ourselves. Eschewing mutual co-operation and even debate, criticism and discussion, our camps have become self-centered internal re-education camps; as we enter into the world of revolutionary politics were are individually pulled to one camp or another and once there we are taught to trust only in our gang and hate all others. Segregated, it becomes harder and harder for co-operation to exist. Further communication is dismissed as "Trotskyist lies" or "Stalinist totalitarianism" or "Anarchist mumbo-jumbo". Those who are new to the movement will often try to find ways to "mend broken ties", urge that we should all "get along" and that our "similarities vastly outweigh our differences". Those of us who have been embittered by years of rivalry shrug these "idealists" off, promising that they will soon learn the error of their utopian ways and eventually fall into one of our gangs and become yet another bitter rival.
RevLeft is a sort of microchosm of this effect. Nearly all of us have adopted and been adopted into affiliations with one ideological tendency or another and most of us stand ready to defend our "gang" and fight all others. Anyone seen as belonging to an opposing gang is dismissed out of hand without a thought. Though some communication takes place, very few threads exist where labels aren't thrown around as insults at opposing members.
For a long time I have adopted the idea that there is no way to reconcile our differences which have developed over decades of global politics; I have convinced myself that the best way to move forward is mercilessly, crushing or ignoring all opposition by virtue of my own self-described correctness. It quickly became clear, like it does to many, that there is no reconciliation possible; there are very few issues which more than a few people can agree on and there are literally hundreds of opposing groups, organizations, tendencies and parties with various affiliations towards one another but always a universal opposition towards most.
This is I believe one of the largest and most critical issues facing our movement, but I'm at a loss as to how to approach it. While it is true that our differences are nothing compared to our similarities, these differences have been so completely blown out of proportion and built up by decades of mistrust and open conflict that there seems very little hope for any sort of peace. To compound our natural differences, we also have to contend with counter-revolutionary forces doing their absolute best to divide and conquer us, overwhelming our minds with misinformation and mistrust towards one another.
Frankly, I'm quite tired of it. It's too hard. There is so much internal conflict that external progress seems an impossibility. Every revolutionary success which has manifested itself in the world over the past 50 years has been constantly harassed and condemned by most of us, and those in development meet with only a fraction of the support they deserve and, more importantly, need. Those of us who view these movements as "non-compliant" with our stringent beliefs are condemned and left to linger in obscurity; movements in Asia, Africa and South America which deserve our strongest possible support are villified and ignored as we sit around twiddling our thumbs and waiting for a more "amicable" movement to come along that fits with our criteria of what a movement has to be in order to earn our support.
That said, what the fuck are we going to do? If this division continues, there is absolutely no hope for any sort of global revolutionary movement -- indeed, there exists revolutionary movements across every continent and in almost every nation on earth and yet most of us seem not to notice this fact and still pledge our complete submission to a very small portion of it. Our "long-awaited global revolution" started years ago; most of us are simply too ignorant to recognize the legitimacy of the majority of this revolution.
During the latter half of the 19th century there existed quite a lot of strife between various sections of the working-class and revolutionary movement. Such is written about extensively by Marx throughout his texts in which criticisms are laid against other individuals and groups concerning their practice and/or theory.
But it was not until the mid 20th century that sectarianism as we know and love it today really took over. Though during the early 1900s, Lenin and the Russian and German communists, who at the time represented the largest mainstream communist movement in the world, embarked into "opposing camps", with social-democrats, utopian socialists, "Kautskyists" and various other gruops and individuals, it wasn't really until the onset of the Second World War that rifts between revolutionary movements and communist groups took a dangerous turn.
In Spain, the anti-fascist brigades made up of a wide array of ideologies successfully fought together against a common foe. However, in the tumultuous aftermath of their defeat, biting remarks and stinging criticisms were formed which in time shaped our world.
The political atmosphere surrounding the outbreak of the Second World War is also a cataclysmic point in history in which communists and other leftists began breaking apart from one another, as some pursued friendly relations with Stalin's USSR and others adopted critical positions on its relationship with Germany. And in the aftermath of that war, as Soviet influence grew in liberated countries, various factions, notably those adhering to Trotskyism, came to engender what they believed was a society of "communist victims of communism", seeing the apparent oppressive tendencies of the Soviet government as justification for breaking from any who supported the Soviet Union.
Further incidents ensued which chipped away and fragmented the socialist world. The Korean war, the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet-Yugoslavian split, the Sino-Soviet split, the Cuban Missile Crisis, all developed from or developed into serious divisions.
All told, 30 years after the end of the Second World War, the communist world was fractured and split, with various camps forming and breaking alliances, conspiring against one another and unleashing a barrage of propaganda villifying their political opponents and angelicising themselves.
This tendency has seriously affected the communist movement. No longer are differences developed over debate and criticism -- the communist movement has split off into what I can only describe as gang culture, with self-imposing labels of affiliation serving as the main and often sole source of conflict between comrades, as each of us are more than willing not only to label others but also label ourselves. Eschewing mutual co-operation and even debate, criticism and discussion, our camps have become self-centered internal re-education camps; as we enter into the world of revolutionary politics were are individually pulled to one camp or another and once there we are taught to trust only in our gang and hate all others. Segregated, it becomes harder and harder for co-operation to exist. Further communication is dismissed as "Trotskyist lies" or "Stalinist totalitarianism" or "Anarchist mumbo-jumbo". Those who are new to the movement will often try to find ways to "mend broken ties", urge that we should all "get along" and that our "similarities vastly outweigh our differences". Those of us who have been embittered by years of rivalry shrug these "idealists" off, promising that they will soon learn the error of their utopian ways and eventually fall into one of our gangs and become yet another bitter rival.
RevLeft is a sort of microchosm of this effect. Nearly all of us have adopted and been adopted into affiliations with one ideological tendency or another and most of us stand ready to defend our "gang" and fight all others. Anyone seen as belonging to an opposing gang is dismissed out of hand without a thought. Though some communication takes place, very few threads exist where labels aren't thrown around as insults at opposing members.
For a long time I have adopted the idea that there is no way to reconcile our differences which have developed over decades of global politics; I have convinced myself that the best way to move forward is mercilessly, crushing or ignoring all opposition by virtue of my own self-described correctness. It quickly became clear, like it does to many, that there is no reconciliation possible; there are very few issues which more than a few people can agree on and there are literally hundreds of opposing groups, organizations, tendencies and parties with various affiliations towards one another but always a universal opposition towards most.
This is I believe one of the largest and most critical issues facing our movement, but I'm at a loss as to how to approach it. While it is true that our differences are nothing compared to our similarities, these differences have been so completely blown out of proportion and built up by decades of mistrust and open conflict that there seems very little hope for any sort of peace. To compound our natural differences, we also have to contend with counter-revolutionary forces doing their absolute best to divide and conquer us, overwhelming our minds with misinformation and mistrust towards one another.
Frankly, I'm quite tired of it. It's too hard. There is so much internal conflict that external progress seems an impossibility. Every revolutionary success which has manifested itself in the world over the past 50 years has been constantly harassed and condemned by most of us, and those in development meet with only a fraction of the support they deserve and, more importantly, need. Those of us who view these movements as "non-compliant" with our stringent beliefs are condemned and left to linger in obscurity; movements in Asia, Africa and South America which deserve our strongest possible support are villified and ignored as we sit around twiddling our thumbs and waiting for a more "amicable" movement to come along that fits with our criteria of what a movement has to be in order to earn our support.
That said, what the fuck are we going to do? If this division continues, there is absolutely no hope for any sort of global revolutionary movement -- indeed, there exists revolutionary movements across every continent and in almost every nation on earth and yet most of us seem not to notice this fact and still pledge our complete submission to a very small portion of it. Our "long-awaited global revolution" started years ago; most of us are simply too ignorant to recognize the legitimacy of the majority of this revolution.